"The People's Republic of Wales", If only.

In the "Good Old Days of Margaret Thatcher" Tory papers like the Daily Mail would seek out Labour council that dared to attempt to fight the Iron Lay's agenda and label them Loon Left or tag with the satirical People republic of....

Some of these councils like Sheffield  (under David Blunkett no less) or Ken Livingston GLC carried  genuinely popular measures and Thatcher of course unable to defeat the GLC at the ballot box abolished it.

Those days are gone most councils have been striped of their powers by curbs on the council tax and so the Mail must go looking elsewhere .

Those of you who like me were under the delusion that we living under a Lethargic Assembly government and look with envy towards the SNP run Scotland would be surprised see acording to the Daily Mail we are living in the new Peoples Repuplic.

Because Wales is in trouble.
Take the health service. Welsh patients — or their loved ones — who want a full investigation into why the Principality has some of the UK’s most alarming hospital statistics are told there’s no need for one.
And woe betide those who won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.
Look at this week’s demonisation of Labour MP Ann Clwyd, who saw her husband ‘die like a battery hen’ in a Cardiff hospital in 2012 and has become a mouthpiece for thousands in the same situation.
No wonder there’s been an exodus to hospitals in England, as we report today.
Meanwhile, in Welsh schools, standards are falling further behind the rest the UK.
But don’t try complaining that Wales is plummeting down the international education rankings (43rd out of 65) or that there are no league tables to compare schools’ performances or that a brand new system of ‘Wales-only’ GCSEs has, this week, been revealed as a dismal failure.
Just accept that party dogma on such matters trumps selfish bourgeois concerns.
From university applications to house-building, it’s a similar story.
For example, a new law will require all new homes in Wales to install a £3,000 sprinkler system.
Given that the number of new homes registered in Wales was 12 per cent down last year — against a rise of 28 per cent across the UK — how is this sort of extra red tape going to help Welsh builders?
Never mind. The main thing is there’s another Welsh initiative with a Welsh dragon stamped all over it. On this side of the border, the public sector accounts for nearly 70 per cent of all output anyway.

Now lets be fair to the writer Robert Hardman has been given an own goal by our assembly  government .But this is clearly an attempt to  portray Wales as a failure of Socialist planning and bot none of the poorest areas of the UK struggling in Austerity Britain .

But Hardman may be forgiven for pointing out these failings for failings they are if he suddenly switches his attack to the Welsh language.

I have listened to a group of parents in West Wales who have fought a fruitless battle to secure what one might regard as a basic parental right — to have their children taught in English as opposed to Welsh.
I have listened to the despair of a Cardigan mother who has been told not to read to her children in English at home because it ‘confuses’ them. ‘My six-year-old cannot go to the toilet until she asks in Welsh,’ she says.
A stroppy little Englander from across the border? Actually, she is a Welsh-born, Welsh-speaking hill farmer’s daughter who wants her children to learn Welsh — but to speak English first.

He could have mentioned  that

 Education watchdog Estyn said the West Wales council was “very robust and efficient” when intervening in schools and that pupil attendance rates were the best in the country.
It praised the authority’s excellent use of data and the effective way in which it promotes social inclusion and wellbeing.
Strategic leadership was considered strong, both politically and corporately, and senior officers were said to have a very good understanding of priorities.
Pupils in Ceredigion schools perform above average in all three key stages and no child has left full-time education without a recognised qualification in the past three years.

But no he reverts to bigotry and exposes part of his agenda is simply an attack on Wales for not being a good little West England.

But lets be clear it time that Labour woke up in tha Assembly under thier letharic leadership and reluctance to gain the real powers we need to take action here . They are endangering Wales threatening the existence of our Aassembly .

If they can't or will not take action then its time they spent time in opposition and let others sort things out.

Wales was once a beacon for health with pioneering South Wales Miners Federation health schemes and Education where according to the Historian K. p Morgan

In the fifties, the proportion of pupils attending grammar schools in Wales varied between 36 and 50 percent compared with18-25% for England. ..
..Indeed in rural Cardiganshire the figure of those proceeding to higher forms of education rose to 60% of the school population. the highest in the British Isles.

Wales Rebirth of a Nation  (OUP 1982)

We did it in the past and with people on vision and  energy we can do it again .

Its in our hands not right wing English Journalist who come to find fault